


Back to being oneself

by Kail_lizuc



Series: Foreknowledge is dangerous thing [1]
Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family Reunions, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Post-Episode: s12e10 The Timeless Children, Reunions, Spoilers up to season 12, The Doctor (Doctor Who) is a Mess, The Doctor is Hurt (Doctor Who), What Was I Thinking?, and they don't know how to deal with them, god what an awful title, i'm not sure if this constitutes as a whump, the doctor has a shit ton of trauma, the doctor has issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-15
Updated: 2020-08-15
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:22:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25908034
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kail_lizuc/pseuds/Kail_lizuc
Summary: Their heads snapped up the moment the TARDIS’ door opened, and Amy was about to ask how it’d gone when she noticed the vacant look in the Doctor’s eyes. A moment later, River stepped inside too, looking concerned.“Doctor, I know this is hard on you, but you have to tell me,” she said, skipping steps to catch up with him. “How far back did he send you?”Or, the Thirteenth Doctor gets rewinded by a prisoner when she was trying to escape prison and she ends up in her eleventh body again.
Relationships: Eleventh Doctor & Amy Pond & Rory Williams, Eleventh Doctor/River Song, Thirteenth Doctor & Amy Pond & Rory Williams, Thirteenth Doctor/River Song
Series: Foreknowledge is dangerous thing [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1880203
Comments: 41
Kudos: 225





	Back to being oneself

Alarms were blasting all around them as the Doctor ran down the corridors followed by a bunch of other prisoners she’d freed as a distraction. There were screams everywhere as the guards tried to stop and capture them in vain.

Her body was currently running purely on adrenaline, a feeling she’d missed in the past few months —if her time sense was to be trusted, she had been imprisoned for the past twenty three months, Earth time—, and boy, she was _revelling_ in it now.

The Doctor glanced around to make sure they were still clear of any guards, when her eye caught sight of a man nearby. The humanoid, with odd ash-like skin, bright white braids and a strange symbol tattooed on his cheek, had tripped and fallen to the ground and seemed to have trouble getting up, so of course she went up to help him, never one to just stand by and do nothing.

“Come on now,” she muttered, taking him by the arm. “We’re almost there, I think. We can’t be too far away now…”

Her voice trailed off as her gaze connected with the man’s golden eyes, her whole body freezing at the sight of his wide, malicious grin. A shiver ran down her spine at the murderous aura he seemed to exude now and she tried to let go of him to no avail.

“Thank you, miss,” his voice carried over the sound of her hearts pounding. “You were really helpful today.”

Before she could say anything, his eyes shone brightly and a golden light surrounded her in an instant. Her pain receptors flared up and her whole body burned as if she’d been set on fire. The Doctor couldn’t even _think_ due to the agonizing pain she was in; she could hear a voice screaming distantly, and it took her too long to realize it was her own.

After what felt simultaneously like eternity and a second, the overwhelming sensation finally started to recede and she was blissfully welcomed by the darkness of lost consciousness.

✿

Rory had been having a particularly exhausting week (or month, or year, really), what with trying to locate his kidnapped daughter who would eventually grow up to be River, accidentally meeting Hitler, finding out that his childhood friend Mels was actually his long-lost daughter, and the Doctor almost dying _too soon_.

Needless to say, he didn’t need any more problems right now, and for once both the Doctor and Amy agreed with him. His wife had easily convinced their friend to take them somewhere quiet where there was absolutely no way they would end up running for their lives, and the Doctor was about to do just that when a golden light suddenly shone inside the TARDIS, blinding them all in an instant.

Suddenly, he heard the Doctor let out a horrifying scream —a sound that would haunt Rory’s nights for days to come— and then there was a loud _thump_ sound, like a body hitting the ground, as the light finally started to disappear. The next thing he saw was the Doctor collapsed on the console floor, some of the golden light still surrounding him like a coat. It vaguely reminded him of the energy that had come off the Doctor when they watched him die in Lake Silencio, if the light had been just around his head and hands instead of his whole body.

The thought that the universe hated Rory and would never give him a goddamned break passed through his mind, but it was quickly forgotten as he rushed to his friend’s side to make sure he was alright. And for the most part he was. The Doctor’s only bruise was the one he got in his shoulder when he fell and passed out, but that wouldn’t guaranty the agonizing screams Rory heard.

So now both Rory and Amy were anxiously waiting for the Doctor to wake up in the med bay where they had carried him to, the TARDIS, bless her, having moved the room closer for them.

Rory was starting to drift to asleep on a chair when he felt someone shaking him awake, and he opened his eyes to see his wife in front of him.

“He’s waking up,” Amy pointed out, leaning slightly closer to observe their friend, and that made Rory wake up properly.

“Doctor?” he called tentatively, standing by his side with his hand hovering in the air. “Can you hear me?”

There was a moment where the Doctor was just lying there, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand, and then he sat up suddenly, as if shocked. He was looking at them strangely, his mind probably still too drowsy to deal with the real world yet, and both of them patiently waited for him to come to.

“…Ponds? What’re you— ugh,” he grimaced, a hand coming up to touch his throat. “Er, what’s wrong with my voice? It sounds… It sounds all weird… And my hair! What’s happened to it?”

He frowned, taking the ends of his hair and staring at them bewildered and almost offended, as if they had insulted him and his whole family somehow.

“What happened to my hair?! Did I regenerate or…?”

By his side, ignoring the incoherent mumble, Amy muttered, “What’s going on? And what’s with that Yorkshire accent?”

Rory had to admit that he was just as baffled as her. He exchanged a worried look with his wife and then glanced back at their friend.

Their friend who, suddenly in a panic, scrambled out of the bed, clumsily tripping on the sheets before catching himself and running directly to the bathroom. He rested his weight on his hands on both sides of the sink as he stared wide eyed at his reflection.

“ _No_ … It can’t be…” he murmured, lifting a hand to touch his face as he inspected it closer. “That’s not possible… I’m— I’m _Chinny_ again, but how…?”

“Doctor?” Rory called softly, slowly reaching out to put a hand on his arm. The Doctor snapped his gaze at him, as if he was seeing him for the first time, and there was so much pain in his eyes that Rory was momentarily taken aback.

“Rory…” the Doctor gasped, his voice cracking ever so slightly, and then his eyes shifted to focus on Amy, “Amelia…”

As quiet and fragile as the moment was, it didn’t last. The Doctor shook his head violently, startling himself into motion as he began to pace around the room but never too close to them.

“This doesn’t make any sense; I shouldn’t be here,” he started rambling rapidly, fingers running through his hair in a nervous manner, and maybe it was a trick of the light, but Rory could’ve sworn his eyes glowed golden for a moment there. “Last I remember I was escaping with some other prisoners and we were running towards the entrance, and then— then— Agh! I can’t remember, _why_ can’t I remember?”

The moment the Doctor started to smack his head with his palms, Rory moved to his side and caught his arms, stopping him from both pacing and potentially hurting himself.

“Doctor, you need to calm down, alright? Just breathe now,” he ordered firmly, making eye contact for a moment, and it seemed to work because his shoulders visibly sagged down.

“Right, yeah. Yeah, sorry,” he shook his head lightly, and after a moment Rory deemed it safe enough to let go of his arms. As they fell limp by his sides, the Doctor held down his head and breathed in and out slowly. “Right, panicking won’t help. It never does. So I’m not panicking then. Good. Not panicking at all. Just… thinking. Thinking’s good. Yeah. Thinking’s good, panicking’s not. Great. I can do this. I’m not panicking, just thinking, remembering. Not remembering, not really. Just thinking…”

As the Doctor kept on rambling under his breath, Rory looked back at Amy and could only shake his head at her questioning look. She sighed, softly announcing she’d go make some tea and bring them back some, and then left.

Rory focused back on the Doctor, who seemed to have calmed down enough and was now sitting at the edge of the bed. Sitting down carefully next to him, Rory opened his mouth to say something but the Doctor beat him to it.

“What happened to me?” he asked. “From your perspective, what _exactly_ happened to me?”

And Rory told him about the golden light and how it’d shown up out of nowhere and knocked him unconscious. The Doctor hummed, staring at him thoughtfully when he fell quiet, and then let out a long sigh as he flopped down on the bed.

“At least I’m not in prison anymore, so there’s that.”

That made him frown even more confused because _what the hell did that even mean?_ Of course, he was a sensible nurse and therefore didn’t actually ask _that_ , instead going for a simple, “Prison?”

“Yeah. Like I said, I was escaping—” he cut himself off, tensing suddenly, but before Rory could ask what was wrong, he’d stood up and stared studiously at his face, “Never mind that. Where exactly in your timeline are you right now? What’s the last place I took you to?”

“Er, Germany. We just discovered River’s actually our childhood friend Mels,” he replied, and idly wondered what was taking Amy so long. Then he frowned, because shouldn’t the Doctor _know_ this? “Don’t you remember?”

The Doctor mouthed a small _oh_ but didn’t actually answer him because that was the moment Amy came back with a tray of tea and their daughter in tow. Upon seeing her, the Doctor completely froze up, his mouth slightly opened in shock and his face going pale.

“Hello, sweetie,” River smiled, stepping up from behind Amy, but it didn’t get any reaction from the Doctor, which worried Rory even more because he always reacted to her; be it annoyance or giddiness or excitement, the Doctor _always_ reacted to River Song. She seemed to have noticed that too, carefully walking up to him and putting a hand on his arm, “Sweetie?”

The Doctor jumped back like a startled cat, and after regaining his foot, he straightened his shirt nervously, refusing to actually look River in the face as he stared intently at the floor.

He opened his mouth to say something, possibly a greeting, Rory supposed, but nothing actually came out.

“Doctor?” River asked tentatively, concerned. “What’s wrong?”

“Sorry,” the Doctor mumbled, fidgeting, “Sorry. Just—” He glanced sheepishly at Amy and Rory, who were standing just a few steps behind River, then at the door and back at them. They needn’t to be told; they both understood what he was asking for.

“We’ll be in the kitchen,” Amy said, taking Rory’s hand and starting to move towards the door.

“Shout if you need anything,” Rory added with one last look in the Doctor’s direction. The door closed behind him with a soft _click_ , and he sighed.

He hoped River could help the Doctor in whatever-it-was that was happening to him. For now, though, Rory could use a proper nap and maybe a snack.

✿

The Doctor’s head was spinning; her enhanced senses trying to make sense of time and failing completely because it was all. So. _Wrong_.

She was in the past, which would probably sound more pressing had she not been a time traveller, but this was way different.

She was _in_ her past; she was _living_ her past, inside her own personal timeline. She’d somehow managed to go back to her Chinny period, her eleventh (twelfth? She never counted Granddad, though) face. She wasn’t just meeting her past; she had _become_ her past.

She’d been rewinded!

Oh, that was new; she’d never been rewinded before.

And now the Ponds — _oh, her Ponds_ , how she’d missed them— were here too, as was River, her incredible, beautiful, _alive_ wife.

“Oh, River…”

It was intended as a wistful whisper, but in the silence that filled the room, it sounded so much louder, and she winced.

River had moved to stand next to her, gently coaxing her to take a seat before she fell, and who was the Doctor to refuse? It was that or the floor with how fast her head was spinning.

“Doctor, what happened?” she asked, and the Doctor instinctively leaned on her, closing her eyes. River started to ran her fingers through her hair —her considerably short, brown hair—, the soothing motion calming the Doctor’s nerves.

“I… I’m not sure,” she confessed softly. “I was escaping from prison, and then I woke up here in, in this body.” She passed a hand —which was bigger than she was used to but still incredibly familiar— through her face tiredly, “I don’t understand. I was a blonde woman five minutes ago; two regenerations into the future, in fact, not— not _Chinny_.”

She scoffed. At least he wasn’t _Sandshoes_ or _Ears_ , those poor bastards. The last thing she needed right now was the emotional turmoil those faces always seemed to be feeling (completely justified, all things considered, but still not what she needed at the moment). She was thankful she didn’t end up in a body from before or during the Time War, that would have been Hell. It could’ve been interesting to be _Eyebrows_ again though, except that she couldn’t remember a big portion of her time in that body due to Clara. Or maybe she could’ve met Bill and Nardole and Missy again. That would have been nice too.

River’s curious voice brought her out of her head, “You mean you regenerated?”

“Yeah, long story. The Time Lords—” she cut herself off. No, she wasn’t quite ready to talk or even think about the Time Lords yet, not after discovering what they did to her. She still hadn’t processed that revelation, not when she’d been too busy trying to find a way to escape. “It doesn’t matter now. The point is I shouldn’t be here.”

“Why don’t you walk me through what you last lived?” her wife offered after a moment, and the Doctor opened one eye to stare at her. “Maybe you’ll remember something and we can figure out a solution from there.”

The Doctor hummed, closing her eyes again and snuggling closer to River. After gathering her thoughts, she began speaking. She told River about being imprisoned by the Judoon, how it took her months to find a way out of her cell and even longer to form a proper escape plan. How she was running with some other prisoners when she saw a man on the floor and went to help him…

River nudged her encouragingly, “A man?”

She nodded, “He was just smiling at me and then— then this light surrounded me. Next thing I know, I’m Chinny again.”

“A light, like the one Amy said showed up here?”

“I suppose so, yes.”

Her wife hummed thoughtful. “He’s most likely the reason you’re back here, so we should find him. Do you think you can you describe him to me?”

The Doctor frowned, trying to picture the guy in her mind. “He had very white hair, dark grey skin, kinda like ash, and golden eyes… Uh, I can’t tell what species though, but he had this symbol on his left cheek. Like a downwards double triangle with a crown on the top left or something,” she gestured around with her hands and then sighed frustrated, getting up and skipping towards the table on the side of the room. “Hold on, lemme just…”

She took a paper and a pen that were lying around and drew the symbol as accurate as she could remember. When she was finished and convinced it looked similar enough, she handed it to River, who inspected it with a hum.

“I’ll see if I can find anything on this guy,” she informed, pocketing the drawing, and she walked up to the Doctor, taking her hands on hers. “In the meantime, you think you’ll be okay here?”

“Of course,” she grinned. “I’m always looking forward to spending time with my in-laws.”

River’s eyes widened momentarily, then she smiled amused and kissed her.

“You should probably check your diary to see where you are in the timeline, sweetie,” she said softly. “You haven’t got married yet.”

Blinking, the Doctor flushed red, “Right, yes. I should probably do that.”

River laughed, kissing her again.

“Hmm, you’ve gotten better at this.”

“I’ve got years of experience.”

“Should I be jealous?”

“Of yourself?”

The Doctor smiled, bringing her close for another kiss before they parted. River pressed some coordinates in her vortex manipulator and with one last of those charming smirks of hers, she was gone.

The Doctor took a deep breath and moved to see herself in the mirror again. She blinked at the man that stared back at her, with the red bowtie and the brown hair and the pointy chin. She was missing the purple coat though— no, wait, she wore a tweed jacket during this period of time. She changed it after the angels took her Ponds and… _Oh_ , her Ponds. Amy and Rory. She had to face them now, knowing full well what’s going to happen to them in the future. The guilt sat heavily in her chest just like it did a thousand years ago—

She shook her head, slapping her cheeks with both hands to focus on the present. There was no point dwelling in that now. It happened, or will happen, and she just had to deal with it. She’s always been good at ignoring things that hurt her, so this should be nothing.

And besides, she still had to explain what was going on to them, so hopefully that would take her mind off those thoughts.

“I can do this,” she muttered to herself. “I have to. I’ll be back to my blonde self and meet the fam again in no time, I’m sure of it.”

With one last look at her past-current body, the Doctor walked away from the med bay.

_I can do this._

✿

Amy and Rory took the news considerably well. She should’ve expected this from her Ponds, to be honest; they had already seen her die at Lake Silencio, after all, so this was probably nothing for them compared.

It had occurred to her half way through her explanation that she couldn’t tell them about her regeneration because these two still thought she was going to die at eleven hundred and three years old. She couldn’t tell them that she would live another thousand years and turn Scottish and then a woman because the timeline depended on them not knowing.

So when Rory asked how old she was, the Doctor could only smile sheepishly and say, “Spoilers.”

Amelia had rolled her eyes at that, muttering something about bloody time travellers, and they had let the subject go, for which the Doctor was relieved.

Rory had also pointed out her new Yorkshire accent, that the Doctor hadn’t even noticed was probably a dead giveaway of the situation, and she had muttered something about spending a few years in Yorkshire and _that’s probably where I got it from, Pond, don’t think about it too much._

The TARDIS had been humming sympathetically since the Doctor woke up here, like she understood what was happening and was trying to support her thief, and it brought a smile to her face when she realized.

And now, for the past half an hour, the Doctor had been reading her (considerably empty) diary to see where exactly everybody was in the timeline so she wouldn’t screw it all up by accident. That’s when Amelia walked up to her.

“So,” Amy started, and the Doctor looked up from the page detailing that time she almost died in Germany, which was ages ago for her but only a day or two prior for the Ponds. “What’re we gonna do while we wait for River?”

“Good question, Pond,” she hummed thoughtfully, pocketing the diary and getting up with a jump. “I’d say… Go somewhere _I_ haven’t gone to yet. In case that when I get back to my time this me doesn’t remember what we’ve done.”

“Alright, sound’s fair,” Amy nodded, then grinned excitedly— and boy, had she missed that smile. “Where to then?”

The Doctor grinned back, “I don’t believe I ever took you to Rio, right Pond?”

✿

It was two weeks later, fourteen days in which the Doctor took the Ponds in all sort of adventures she couldn’t the first time around and pretended she didn’t have a shit ton of trauma to process, when River came back with a name and coordinates.

The mysterious man that had sent her into this mess was named Kakós Kratoúmenos, and nicknamed _the Vanisher_ before people found out it was him committing all those crimes. From a small tribe that lived in one of Arcoba III’s many moons, he was condemned for the murder of three hundred and nine people in the course of twenty six years. Nobody ever figured out how exactly did he do it and that’s the reason he was considered one of the most dangerous beings in that galaxy during his time period.

The Doctor was lucky to be even alive, River had said with a frown, while the Doctor had just archived the whole experience into the ‘Almost Got Killed’ room in her mind and moved on.

They had programmed the TARDIS to land during one of the guy’s early days as a murderer, and really, he wasn’t even that difficult to find to merit being twenty six years on the run. River and her had easily cornered and immobilized Kakós, and the guy seemed considerably less impressive now than she remembered him to be in the prison. Either way, she’d hate to have to let him go knowing about all those people he’d go out and murder, but much like killing Hitler before his time, she just couldn’t do anything about it. It was history and changing it now would create a paradox. She didn’t want to risk it.

“Kakós Kratoúmenos, also known as the Vanisher by the authorities,” River stated, and the guy’s eyes widened impossibly because at this point in time, nobody knew that the Vanisher and Kakós were the same person. “Tell us, how did you kill all those people?”

“W-What are you talking about? Who are you?” he asked, trying and failing at disguising his nerves as confusion.

“Now, now, Kakós. We both know what you are,” the Doctor grumbled unimpressed. “So I advise you save us the drama and just answer the question.”

“Unless, of course, you want us to tell the Judoon what you’ve done,” River smirked.

Kakós flinched, hard. It only took a few more seconds before he opened his mouth. He started to spit out lots of gibberish in an empty attempt to get away, but River pointing her gun at his forehead was enough to make him focus.

“I-I-I don’t hurt m-my victims…” he muttered. “T-They don’t suffer at all w-when they go.” The Doctor raised an eyebrow skeptically ‘cause she sure as hell remembered the agonizing pain she’d been in, but the guy wasn’t even looking her way, too busy staring at the ground as if it could get him out of this situation. “I-It’s rewinding. I-I just r-rewind them back a few years, t-that’s all. I promise.”

_Called it_ , she thought idly.

“And, say,” River started, and the Doctor glanced sideways at her. “How far back could you rewind someone?”

“Uhh…” he blinked, pausing a moment to think “T-Theoretically, billions of years, b-but nobody lives that long, so only a-as far back as t-they’re alive… W-Why?”

Her wife hummed thoughtfully, then focused again on the guy. Kakós whimpered.

“Can you unwind them back if they survived?” River finally asked, and the Doctor held her breath in anticipation.

“N-No. I-It doesn’t work l-like that.”

_Oh, fuck._

She zoned out the rest of the conversation and let River to deal with it.

She was stuck here now. She’d have to live hundreds of years again for the sake of the timeline. All the pain, all the suffering, all the good and bad memories; she’d have to relive it all—

But that was virtually impossible; she couldn’t possibly experience every single detail again the same way as she did before, and that was without taking into account the fact that she was missing memories from her time with Clara.

Oh, Ras— Oh boy, what was she going to do now?

✿

Their heads snapped up the moment the TARDIS’ door opened, and Amy was about to ask how it’d gone when she noticed the vacant look in the Doctor’s eyes. A moment later, River stepped inside too, looking concerned.

“Doctor, I know this is hard on you, but you have to tell me,” she said, skipping steps to catch up with him. “How far back did he send you?”

There was a long pause while the Doctor just stood there, suddenly looking so very old and tired.

“I don’t know,” he admitted, leaning on the console rail with a sigh and running his hands over his face. “I lost count. It could be anywhere from a thousand to four and a half billion years.”

Amy sucked in a breath. She didn’t want to think about the implications of that big of a gap between estimations, but even then it meant that it had most likely been a very long time since the Doctor last saw them; no wonder he looked like he’d seen a ghost when he first woke up. He was even older than the Doctor they watched die at Lake Silencio, but that wasn’t possible… Unless—

“Either way, it doesn’t matter,” the Doctor continued, unknowingly cutting off Amy’s train of thought, and he refused to look at any of them. “I can’t live it all over again; it’s impossible. I’ve forgotten things and some stuff happened by simple chance. Even I can’t replicate that— nor do I want to, for that matter.”

“Wait, then— you’re stuck here?” Rory asked to clarify, and the Doctor just nodded. “Oh…”

“Oh indeed,” he muttered, and winced for whatever reason. “No, not O. Definitely not O.”

Before Amy could ask what he meant by that, he turned around and bounced to the other side of the console, the abrupt change to his usual energetic self almost giving them whiplash.

“By the way, I’m sure you’ve figure it out by now, but I didn’t die— _won’t_ die, at Lake Silencio, so you don’t have to worry about that anymore.”

Rory and Amy exchanged an uncertain look at the blatant change of subject, but ultimately just went with it because when the Doctor didn’t want to talk about something, he just _wouldn’t_ and the last thing they wanted was that he shut them out now.

Behind them, there was a flash of light where River should have been and just a few seconds later she reappeared in another flash, this time with a golden diary in hand. She smiled at the Doctor as she handed it to him.

When he raised an eyebrow questioningly, she explained, “You should write down your foreknowledge in there. Make a guideline of your own timeline with everything you remember, that way you won’t get as confused with what you’ve lived and what you haven’t.”

The Doctor smiled, pocketing the diary, and leaned over to kiss River, “Thank you, sweetie.”

✿

The Doctor had never actually realized how many adventures she’d had in her life until she had to write it all down, and _boy_ , she’d had many adventures.

It’d taken her almost four hours just to list what she’d lived as Chinny after the events in Germany, and her hands hurt by the time she reached Trenzalore— Oh, and that was another thing she’d noticed; she was ambidextrous again. While in her latest incarnation she was just right handed, completely rubbish with her left hand, Chinny had been able to use both hands equally even if he favoured his left one sometimes. And now she was able to use both again, which was nice. Her handwriting hadn’t changed a bit though.

It was an interesting discovery but now both of her hands hurt.

She sighed, dropping her pen on the desk and massaging her left wrist gently. So much for her superior Time Lord biology, eh.

“Are you alright?”

The Doctor startled and whipped around to look at Rory, who was standing awkwardly at few feet behind her. He looked a bit sheepish too.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No, no. It’s fine,” she waved him off with what she hoped was a reassuring smile. “I was just lost in thought.”

He hummed, taking a seat next to her. “What’re you doing?”

“Oh, just… Writing down all the adventures I’ve had in the future,” she gestured vaguely at the diary. “I haven’t even written half of it yet and I’m already tired.”

Rory inspected the many written pages without actually reading anything and frowned, “Do you have to live all that again?”

She nodded, “Most of it, yeah. I’ll try to avoid certain events though,” _like Manhattan and the angels_ , she added in her head. She wasn’t going to lose her Ponds again if she could help it. Not in the way she had last time at least.

Besides, the paradox hadn’t been created yet, technically, so she could avoid it altogether if she wished so, and she sure as hell did.

“Won’t that change the timeline?” Rory asked; his voiced laced with concern.

“Technically speaking, Rory,” she started, leaning back on her chair and stretching her arms over her head absentmindedly, “the timeline hasn’t been created yet. Time can be rewritten. Well, _most_ time anyway. And usually the paradoxes make sure people don’t remember certain events for the sake of protecting the timeline, so there’s that too. But don’t worry; if something _needs_ to happen, it will.”

“Huh,” he blinked. “That’s incredibly convenient.”

“It is,” she allowed, gaze focusing on a random point on the wall behind him. “I still have to be careful with what I do, though. After all, foreknowledge is a dangerous thing and it can be troublesome at times.”

Shaking her head to bring herself out of her mind, she stood up with a jump and grinned at her friend.

“But don’t you worry, Pond,” she said. “I’ve had quite a few experiences with foreknowledge.”

“Have you?”

“Of course; you can even thank your daughter for some of them.”

Rory cocked his eyebrows but didn’t comment further on the subject, instead his eyes trailed down to stare at her neck bemused.

“You’re not wearing your bowtie.”

“Hm?” she looked down at herself, bringing a hand up to feel the collar of her shirt where, as Rory stated, she was lacking a bowtie. “Ah, yes, that. Bowties were kind of Eleven’s thing; I’m Thirteen now.”

“Amy will be thrilled,” he commented amused, making her giggle.

“She sure will.”

Then he arched an eyebrow curious, “And what’s _your_ thing?”

The Doctor hummed thoughtfully, “Rainbows, probably. Oh! I wonder where’s my scarf nowadays.”

“What scarf?”

She just grinned excitedly at him and walked towards a door she was sure would lead to the wardrobe, knowing he’d follow after her. She started rummaging through the many clothes, ignoring Rory’s comments about the reason why the wardrobe would connect to the library.

“Aha!” she exclaimed, messily wrapping her colorful scarf around her neck and whirling around to face Rory. “How do I look?”

He snorted.

“Ridiculous. Still better than the bowtie though.”

She pouted, “Now that’s just rude, Rory.” Then she stuck out her tongue at him, “Too bad; I’m keeping it.”

“You’re such a child now, huh?”

The Doctor shrugged, “The previous me was Scottish; I’m compensating.”

“Did I just hear the word _Scottish_?” Amy chimed in, sticking her head in the wardrobe with a cocked eyebrow and accidentally cutting whatever Rory was going to say off.

“Oh, yes. I used to be an old Scotsman with angry eyebrows,” she informed. “I’m totally blaming you for that, Amelia.”

Said redhead just smiled smugly, “I’m the best influence and you know it.”

“Angry eyebrows?” Rory murmured bemused.

“Angry eyebrows,” the Doctor confirmed, nodding solemnly. “You should’ve seen me. It was just ridiculous.”

“At least you _had_ eyebrows,” Amy added, making Rory snort.

“Oi! That’s really rude!”

_Maybe this won’t be so bad after all_ , the Doctor decided, letting her face light up with a grin as her Ponds laughed.

**Author's Note:**

> Btw, “Kakós Kratoúmenos” is just Greek for “Wicked Prisoner”.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed!


End file.
